SUMMARY:  When a boxer is found dead, Detectives Stan, Phil and Dutch are having trouble solving the crime - or even having a conversation that doesn't ramble all over the place.  Barnaby the Cop thinks Benny did it, but it quickly becomes clear that Benny is innocent because he's blind.  Dashing Steve Cartwright can't believe what a hard time everyone is having with the case.  As Benny is released and stumbles all over the place, and the detectives argue whether risotto is a pasta or whether it's rice, classy Delia - Steve's wife - arrives, and she quickly makes some important deductions.

Photos by Marian Gonzalez

SUMMARY:  Our intrepid and not-so-intrepid investigators come across a filthy young urchin named Luka, who may have seen something important.  Luka is terrified to speak at first, but after a drink courtesy of Delia (and Steve's personal valet, Enrique, who serves everybody a round of martinis), Luka opens up and tells them of the terrible thing she saw.  Everybody is in tears at her story of a great leader stabbed in the back by his best friends, who had to put their ideals above friendship... until they realize that Luka was just telling the story of Julius Caesar.  Still, as Blind Benny continues to stumble about trying to find his way home, Delia and Steve somehow tease out enough clues from Luka's story to deduce that the dead boxer is none other than Joe Spumanti, the Mad Italian.  Delia and Steve split up, Delia going to investigate the place where he trained, and Steve to interrogate Joe's girl, the lead dancer at the Follies.  The others decide to lock Luka up "just in case," just as Blind Benny discovers Enrique's martini cart and declares himself to be home.

Photos by Marian Gonzalez

SUMMARY:  At the Folies Bergere, a musical number is in progress involving a shaky, polio-stricken FDR.  Also shaky is dancer Betty, the worst dancer in the Follies, and impressario Fluffy Diamonds fires her.  Steve arrives; as the dancers swoon over the famous detective, he interrogates Fluffy about the death of Joe Spumanti, but Fluffy claims to know nothing... nor does hard-bitten Meredith, the leader of the chorus girls.  But Steve's still got his suspicions...

Photos by Scott Golden

SUMMARY:  Delia investigates at the ring where the late Joe Spumanti trained.  She interrogates notoriously shady trainer Sonny (who is trying to train Blind Benny), but it's a dead end - he loved Joe like a brother.  But another boxer, the monosyllabic Ungher, has a lead for Delia - a Broadway producer who made Joe mad.  Meanwhile, Steve asks questions of Bruno, the bartender across the street, but mostly just ends up giving the bartender a rather violent what-for over the correct way to make a martini.

Photos by Marian Gonzalez

SUMMARY:  Steve and Delia circle back to the Follies to question Fluffy Diamonds further, as well as his collaborator, Meredith.  They get nowhere... but after they leave, Meredith confesses to Fluffy that she killed Joe Spumanti.  She has an evil plan to make millions by paying actors less than minimum wage in plays by people nobody's ever heard of in houses of less than 100 seats and charging "up to ten dollars per seat."  Spumanti was a Councilor with Actors' Equity who got in her way.  She's had a gaggle of actors trapped in the basement at the Follies to break their will so they'll agree to her plans, and she cackles insanely as she releases the staggering thespians from the basement.

Photos by Marian Gonzalez